You Just Never Know...

As I wheeled around the circle at West Neck last Wednesday to get lined up for launching my boat, I noticed a piece of board laying in my path. Not sure whether it contained any nails, I made it a point to straddle it with both the vehicle and trailer and pull forward far enough to walk back and remove it from the drive.

It became pretty clear to me as I reached down and picked up the waterlogged board that it was part of someone's trailer bunk.

After examining the board for a moment, I tossed it toward the side, whereupon it glanced off a standing pine tree and splintered into pieces. I then searched the drive where it had been laying for anything that might damage a tire and, once satisfied there was nothing, went about getting my boat lined up for launch.

In the course of this activity, I was swapping comments with a buddy who just had launched ahead of me and had watched me pick up the board and toss it aside. He, too, figured it was a piece from someone's bunk and even said at the time, "I for a moment wondered if that might be mine."

Now fast forward to last Friday, when the same buddy and I again launched our boats and went fishing. We just had come in from the day on the water and, as I was readying my boat to take it to the mechanic for an overheating problem I had had, my buddy pointed my attention to the fact he had a chunk of his one bunk covering dragging the ground. He subsequently wrapped the covering around the trailer's frame until he could get the rig home and take a close look at what he needed to do.

Yesterday, then, came an email from that buddy, telling me that he had uncovered the truth of the matter. When he checked that bunk with the covering that had been dragging, he found there was a chunk of the bunk completely missing--most likely the piece I had found laying in the drive last Wednesday.

In reality, it's a pretty good thing this incident happened when it did because my buddy just happens to be planning a trip to Lake Gaston in a few weeks. Instead of perhaps finding himself stranded somewhere alongside the road with a disastrous situation on his hand, he only has to make a trip to the local Home Depot and enlist the help of his son to make things safe and sound again before he gets on the road with his trailer.

I gotta believe my buddy dodged a bullet, and from the tone of his email yesterday, I get the strong feeling he's thinking the same way.